(Some of the schools) rely on Pensacola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based "facts," ...and all sorts of pseudoscience that researcher Rachel Tabachnick and writer Thomas Vinciguerra have thankfully pored over so the rest of world doesn't have to. Here are some of my favorite lessons:

Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out: "Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

Dragons were totally real: "[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007...

"Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world's richest nations."—Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999.

I have yet to hear voucher proponents explain how they can prevent public money from financing private religious indoctrination. In part, I suspect, because they see this as a feature of voucher programs, not a bug.

UPDATE: Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, is also troubled:

August 7, 2012

Dear Governor Jindal:

I write to you as the President of Interfaith Alliance to express my disappointment, concern and indeed, outrage at the school voucher program you have implemented in the state of Louisiana. Not only do I represent this national organization whose members come together from 75 faith traditions and belief systems to protect religious freedom, champion individual rights, and promote policies that protect both religion and democracy, I also serve as Senior Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, and thus, I am one of your constituents. Your school voucher scheme is bad for religious freedom and bad for public education as well as a blatant attack on the religious freedom clauses in the United States Constitution.

Thankfully, thoughtful educators, concerned citizens, and media representatives in the state are exposing your ruthless attack on public education—the provision that the founders of our nation considered essential to the survival of our democracy. You seem unable to distinguish between religious indoctrination and basic public education. Though Interfaith Alliance is a non-litigious agency, we are encouraging other agencies to file suits challenging your decision to use public tax dollars to build structures for churches across the state and to fund educational curricula that qualify more as a catechism than as a tool for holistic education. Of course, you flaunted your disregard for government-subsidized religion by choosing a Roman Catholic Church as the venue at which to sign your legislation!

When in 1785 the state of Virginia considered a bill that would fund “Teachers of the Christian Religion,” James Madison penned his famous remonstrance reminding his contemporaries, and indeed, generations to come, that “it is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him.” Put another way, funding, participating in, and sending our children to religious education programs is the right and responsibility of faith communities, clergy, and parents as they see fit—not of our government. Every American also has an equal right to choose not to fund or participate in religious education.

Your voucher program also will fund private schools and curricula that are inevitably not up to the standards of quality information of public schools, and fund the teaching of theology, which goes against the fundamentals of our religious freedom. I was appalled to learn that private schools—funded with my taxes—will teach our children that evolution does not exist, using the fabled Loch Ness Monster as a “real” example, from textbooks that state:

“God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all.”

Let me be clear: I am not appalled that a Christian school is teaching its students that God created the Earth. Children in my church learn that every Sunday. I am appalled that these schools are teaching theologyas science; and they’re doing so withgovernment money, my tax dollars. Teaching the theology of Creationism is part of the mission of religious schools, and religious education more broadly—I defend with my life’s work their right to teach future generations about their faith. But they should not receive financial support from our government to do so.

What often gets lost in the conversation around school vouchers is the negative impact they can have on religious schools. In the short term, having new revenue streams is of course helpful to private schools, but the fact is that with government money comes government regulation, which can open religious schools up to all kinds of threats to their autonomy that it is in religion’s best interest to avoid. Furthermore, public education is often called the “great equalizer,” and right now, our nation is at a place in history in which all of us truly need to learn how to get along with each other and work together for the good of our nation despite our differences in religion, ethnicity, race, and income. Besides preparing our children and young people to be proficient in math, science, grammar, thinking, and communication skills, public education has no greater role than enabling us to work and walk together despite obvious diversity. Many of the private schools in Louisiana that you are supporting with millions of dollars of vouchers are honestly saying upfront that their mission is sectarian education that promotes one faith over another and makes no effort to commend the common good.

Finally, one of the central problems with school voucher programs could not be on clearer display than it is in Louisiana: Vouchers create competition between religious groups for government funds, and put the government in a position to prefer one over another. A case in point is the reason state Rep. Valarie Hodges changed her position on the school voucher program. I wish that I could celebrate this move, and had she decided to no longer support it because she realized how harmful such funding is to our religious freedom, I would have. Instead, she changed her position on vouchers because she found out that not only Christian groups received the funding, but Muslim groups can too. As a former Hindu—a minority religion in this nation—you, as much as anyone in our state, should be fully aware that herein lies one of the many problems with funneling government money to religious groups. By doing so, the government can (or at least can try) to pick and choose between them -- exactly the situation our founders created the First Amendment to avoid.

In short, the school vouchers system you have allowed to be implemented in our state embodies everything that is wrong with school vouchers as a whole and threatens the integrity of both religion and government. I hope that you will take a step back and see that what you are doing is propelling education in Louisiana back to a level that will decrease even more our abominable ranking when it comes to education in our nation. You are hurting the state, the education of our children, and broadsiding an affront to the values of religious freedom that most of us hold dear.

I am incapable of and uninterested in judging your motivations for such a destruction of education in our state. But, you are capable of changing your mind and helping the situation rather than hurting it. Governor Jindal, please, for the sake of all that is good about education, religious freedom, and our state, put an end to the school vouchers program in Louisiana.

Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Republican who represents East Baton Rouge and Livingston, now says she wishes she hadn’t voted for the Jindal voucher bill.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” Hodges told the Livingston Parish News.

“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges added.

The newspaper reported that she “mistakenly assumed that ‘religious’ meant ‘Christian.’” (The article is password protected, but if you want to read the whole thing, you can sign up here for free.)

“Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders’ religion,” Hodges told the News. “We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”

Posted at 10:07:11 PM

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Kids who are condemned to go to CPS non-magnet schools do not deserve vouchers because they have only themselves to blame. They should go out and get wealthy parents who would send them to private or suburban schools.

CPS non-magnet schools and these private "Christian" voucher schools are essentially dealing with the same kinds of kids - those who are educationally deprived throughout childhood with parents who don't really care about education. The difference is that CPS is actually trying to help these kids make up for their deprived backgrounds, whereas the "Christian" schools encourage kids to wallow in their ignorance and be proud of it.

Horrible indeed, but the public schools have their own problems. From John Stossel:

"It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract." Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000."

GOP legislators in Louisiana have realized to their horror that their bill to provide vouchers for private religious schools can actually be used by Muslims........The newspaper reported that she (Rep. Valarie Hodges) “mistakenly assumed that ‘religious’ meant ‘Christian.

To me it is a definite bug, not a reason to scrap vouchers. I'm hoping someone will get this to the Supreme Court because clearly it is using government money on religious teaching (as opposed to teaching of religion, which can be done in a secular way).

Please do NOT demean all CPS non-magnet schools. My sister is a principal (now) at a NW side neighborhood school (though they do have kids who come from other areas); they are quite well performing, and already had music & gym even before the new deal where they got 2 more teachers. Her 2 boys go to another very high performing neighborhood school, and her eldest just got admitted to Whitney Young, which is considered the 2nd best HS in the state (after Northside Prep, I believe), not an easy feat since he is in a "tier 4", or more "wealthy" (and I use quotes because they are far from wealthy), and he won a writing award at school at graduation. Both of these schools provide a very good education for their kids. And there are more schools, where the teachers AND the students work very hard & do very well. Me, I'm against vouchers because I think that it is necessary for this country to provide a free (ok, as close as possible) PUBLIC education to all students, for many reasons, not the least of which is to provide the country with educated workers - I do think there is a "coordination" issue with available jobs & skills taught; that can & should be remedied. The reason all these awful schools popped up in LA (if you read the article in the Trib, it explained all this) is that the really good private schools have very little space for students who now could possibly go there, plus tough admission standards (unlike public schools who have to take everyone) and all these small private religious schools did have room, or could jam the kids in. Oh - and in some of them, the kids sit around all day watching DVDs (religious in nature, like "biblical math" and other things) and have very little teacher/student interaction. The description sounded horrible - not only do they get a bad education that does not prepare them for the modern world at all, but it's BORING & tedious, too. Woo Hoo!

"I'm hoping someone will get this to the Supreme Court because clearly it is using government money on religious teaching."

I looked into this a while back and found that SCOTUS has already addressed this issue across several cases. When there is true choice involved, the voucher is effectively considered a grant to an individual, not to the school. It's considered comparable to the use of student loans and grants to pay tuition at a religiously-affiliated college. See, for example, Zelman v Simmons-Harris.

Via Wikipedia, the majority opinion in Zelman laid out a five-part private choice test for vouchers to pass constitutional muster when used for schools that teach religion as part of the education they provide:

the program must have a valid secular purpose,
aid must go to parents and not to the schools,
a broad class of beneficiaries must be covered,
the program must be neutral with respect to religion, and
there must be adequate nonreligious options.

The original problem is that we use public money to fund education when every family should be paying for education itself. That won't change but we can still view each student's education funding as personal regardless of the source and let parents choose where to educate them. Personally, I don't see any difference in government indoctrination versus religious indoctrination as we see an equal amount of absurdity in each.

"The original problem is that we use public money to fund education when every family should be paying for education itself."

Right, I agree. Why should we have to pay to educate children of poor people? Those kids should just learn their place - being poor just like their parents. If we start educating them, they may start getting high-falutin' notions like moving up in the world, and that could crowd out those of us who deserve to be on top of the world by virtue of having sense enough to have been born to rich families.

MCN, just curious...when was the last time you were actually in one of those non-magnet CPS schools you so breezily disparage?

In any case, this is a perfect illustration of why "vouchers" are a terrible idea. I notice that none of the conservatives here actually try to defend the La. results on their merits. All they can do is point fingers at public schools.

"I pledge allegiance, to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, with liberty and justice for all"

Indoctrination and lies from start to finish.

ZORN REPLY -- While I'm not as comprehensively indignant about the pledge requirement as Mike M here, I share his evident dislike for this compulsory exercise of patriotism (with a dollop of religion) and second any motion he might make expressing contempt for lawmakers who foist this kind of nonsense on us in the name of "education."

--Well said, Dienne, and also, Greg J all the other public school naysayers, the next time you go into anywhere, Target, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, unless you're lucky enough to get the odd college graduate who has a degree in philosophy, don't you dare complain that the employees are untrained, or worse, stupid, because the very few who will be able to afford school will take the very best jobs, and who will fill these jobs? Not to mention it is important to discover those "stars" who are growing up in a tough neighborhood but may be the next brilliant doctor or even someone who figures out how to make a better mousetrap!

"Why should we have to pay to educate children of poor people? Those kids should just learn their place - being poor just like their parents. If we start educating them, they may start getting high-falutin' notions like moving up in the world, and that could crowd out those of us who deserve to be on top of the world by virtue of having sense enough to have been born to rich families."

When I was young, back in the 1960's, I was idealistic and naive and this sort of rhetoric was fresh and new and I used to buy into it. Today, it seems embarrassingly stupid. Does anyone really still believe this stuff? Does anyone actually believe that people who are critical of public education are worried that poor children "may start getting high-falutin' notions like moving up in the world and crowd out those of us who deserve to be on top." Seriously? Is this the level at which the left wants to debate?

I know where you are going with that line of reasoning, Greg J, and we've covered it before. However, I can guarantee that the immigrants who live 3 blocks away from me can't afford diddley squat let alone funding their own children's education. They arrive under the assumption that someone else will teach their children in public schools. They do indirectly pay property taxes when they pay their rent. It would be a nver-ending poverty cycle to let those immigrant kids not attend school because their parents could not afford it.

Anyway, for those who are not immigrants, they could maybe adjust to a change of how school funding is handled, but it leaves way too much to chance, luck, whims of the economy, technology advances. If a couple decides to have 3 kids when one or both of the parents have good jobs with their education budget is well managed, and then one or both of them lose their jobs for an extended time period, I think the self-funded education will get the short end of the stick to paying for food and shelter in most cases. You can't plan for every possible scenario in life. I would imagine an unintended consequence of self-funded education is fewer children per family, some none at all, and then eventually a huge decline in birth rates, decline in demand for teachers, etc. Just ask Europe what an aging population means.

I am lucky that I can afford to send my kids to private school, but if we experienced a job loss, we'd be glad for the public school to be available.

Greg J. isn't merely critical of public education, he wants to eliminate it entirely by going to a self-funded program which would literally mean that most poor kids (and many not-so-poor kids whose parents have other priorities) wouldn't get an education. That doesn't seem to matter to Greg. I don't know if that's his intent or not, but that would be the effect of the policy he favors. I honestly don't know why so many people are so opposed to mandatory, free public education, which has been one of the greatest boons to our country and which has made us the nation we are. I can only guess that it's yet another conservative variation on "I've got mine, screw you."

How do they get food and shelter? I'm all for a safety net for individuals who are temporarily going through a tough time. I've never claimed we don't need a robust welfare system.

@MOPerina,

If they are legal immigrants, see my response to Kip. If they are illegal alien criminals, it is yet another reason to deport them back to where they belong. Education is no different from any other good that we purchase with our own funds. Everything in life is left to chance, luck, and the whims of the economy.

I don't like that notion either, but I also don't like the fact that many of the poor kids who ARE being provided an education seem to have the mindset of "screw you, I am not only going to piss away my education but also ruin yours." We seem to be overly worried about the "few bad apples" when I think the bigger issue is those apples contaminating the rest of the orchard. Kids who want to learn and are willing to behave in school should be protected from those who are not.

@Pan: The last time I was in a CPS school was 1971 at a talent show wherein I played jazz guitar.

My old neighborhood on the Southwest Side traditionally had one of the best performing high schools and grade schools in the city back in the early 70's, pre-magnet days. (Those schools, tho, weren't as good as the highly overcrowded Catholic grade and high schools my sister and I attended, but my parents had to subsidize CPS anyway and against their will).

The area's population has changed and the high school's average ACT score is about 17 or so.

Would you send your children to that kind of school?

Enough said.

@Dienne: As usual, you overreact, falsely impute evil motives to your ideological adversaries, and entirely fail to understand the economics of education. I hope sometime in the future you will argue in good faith as well as get a handle on what you are talking about.

"Everything in life is left to chance, luck, and the whims of the economy."

Wait a sec - aren't you from the conservative "everything in life comes down to individual merit, talent and hard work" school of thought? Apologies if you were being satirical with the quoted statement, although it does seem of a piece with the rest of your comment.

Taken in isolation, no. But I'd rather have kids who can read, write, add and subtract, but may believe in dragons, than kids who cannot read or write but are well versed in the non-existence in dragons.

Teaching about dragons is probably not a good use of taxpayer money but I went to CPS and was taught that FDR's New Deal brought the country out of the Great Depression. I got over that, just as I think the La. students will be able to get over some of the silly things they are being taught.

"Yes, if it increases the quality of education for poor students at public schools."

Except that it doesn't. When appropriate students are matched against each other, public schools always score as well as or better than private schools. The only reason private schools appear to do better is the selection factor.

You really think it's the schools at fault. I think that's what divides conservatives from liberals on this matter. Opposition to public education seems to believe that the main problem with the schools has to do with the institution itself and that a child transported from a public school to a private school will flourish in the latter.

That may happen in isolated cases, but I don't actually believe it will happen on the whole. Here's a thought experiment - take the entire population of a low-performing school with a population that would be deemed "out of control" when it comes to both behavior and learning. Put that entire school under the control of a private educational system. Do the kids change overnight?

I'm saying some kids won't change and that the culture of a school is not just determined by the teachers, but also owned by the student body. I'd say the social fabric of a school is considerably less affected by the teachers than by the students.

Private schools have the ability to weed out the bad apples and send them back to the public schools who have to take them. That's the main merit in a private school education. It doesn't fix the problems for those students beecause it doesn't care about the larger issues of youth in society. That concern is for those public schools and their kids.

I do not want to eliminate public education although I wouldn't design it from scratch. It's not an ideal system but too many rely on it to change it. The goal is to make it the best it can be.

@AReader,

Hard work counts for a lot but chance, luck, and the whims of the economy are a big deal too. Chance and luck determine everything from your genetics to whether you will die in a horrible bus crash. The economy plays a huge role in everyone's jobs and investments. Life isn't all about hard work nor is it all about chance. Those who are successful maximize their opportunities by working with the hand that life dealt them.

@Pan,

No but the extreme example you cited is no worse than the extreme examples I can find of what is being taught at some public schools.

@Wendy,
@Bradley,

I do not believe that "anything" is better than public schools in every case and I believe that most of the fault lies with the parents of the uneducable, and the unwillingness of the government to get degenerates away from those who want an education. I do believe that its wise for parents to go the private school route if they live in certain areas inhabited by certain people who don't value education and discipline. As I've written many times, the upper and middle class already exercise school choice by moving away from undesirable environments to better suburban districts. When it comes to poor areas, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that some of those kids can't be saved and we need to do the best we can with the ones who are willing to act civilized if not learn something.

"Private schools have the ability to weed out the bad apples and send them back to the public schools who have to take them."

Public schools theoretically have the ability to weed out bad apples and send them to reform school. The problem is that they no longer use it very often. The liberals decry it as having a disparate racial impact.

It's interesting to see how fast we seem to have to draw partisan lines on this board.

Would it be possible for those on the Left to concide that vouchers are a potential mechanism for students to escape schools that are failing them (for any number of reasons)?

Would it be possible for those on the Right to concide that vouchers, if not controlled properly, can become a backdoor mechanism to fund religious education as well as a drain on public education (which many will still need to rely on)?

It's doesn't have to be an either/or choice. Vouchers, done right, may create the competitve basis to drive improvements in all schools. Vouchers, done wrong, could deepen the divide between those with good education opportunities and those with bad opportunities.

As always, I am in opposition to Wendy's implicit assumption that the benefit of education accrues primarily to the society at large rather than to the student and his family (In economic terms, she thinks education is almost a perfect "public good", while I think the public good is only a fraction of the educational benefit, most of which is a private benefit.) Under Wendy's assumption, not giving parents a choice is a justified. Under my assumption, parents should have a choice. People make sub-par choices all the time and those choices do have externalities. But freedom is the freedom to make choices, including choices of what where and how your children learn, as long as no harm comes to their bodies.

Whereas teaching kids that "dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years" cannot possibly about anything other than an honest attempt to educate students.

By the way, other than a job with the George W. Bush administration, what exactly does a degree from Bob Jones University qualify one for, other than being a really good Dungeon Master?

GregJ says: " I do believe that its wise for parents to go the private school route if they live in certain areas inhabited by certain people who don't value education and discipline." Yes, exactly. However, when I get asked why my kids don't go to public school by my neighbors and other locals, I usually answer that it's about getting the extra religious teaching and not the reason that Greg gave, although that's just as important to me. When I have said Greg's reason, people assume some awful and untrue things.

Wouldn't the middle ground be to let those who can afford it pay and provide subsidies to those who can not? And in parallel with that, gradually get the government out of the business of running education, starting with scaling back the Federal involvement.

I also would like to second (third :-)?) Mike M and Zorn in their distaste for the mandatory Pledge. I think it is an oxymoron that demeans true and thoughtful patriotism.

The Pledge is of course only one example of how politics and activism can turn into propaganda in public schools. When my daughter was in [an otherwise excellent] Northshore public school, I was appalled at the kind of mystical pseudo-religious environmentalist drivel the school was promoting.

I believe that all students deserve the opportunity of a "free" public education. In that case, I think that each school should be of that quality. Part of why some private schools succeed is due to their small size & selective environment. They can't handle the number of kids who would like to go there, and if they tried, they'd probably not do nearly as well (the schools, I mean) due to lack of resources. Class size would have to go up, and we know that isn't good. I do think that the public schools could do better. It's too bad that the people who are running things (and think they know everything) are not educators, but businesspeople, who think that you can measure everything quantatively. But you can't. A good teacher inspires their students to learn, and to think. You can't always measure that with a standardized test. Besides that, I turn to my sister for her opinion (which she has given at many times), and that's you can't expect children to learn when they 1) don't have enough food to eat, 2) go to school in a dingy, outdated building with crumbling ceilings, etc, 3) are afraid to even walk to school because it's dangerous, 4) can't get a decent nights sleep due to the gunshots & outside noise, 5) aren't even convinced that they'll live beyond the age of 16 so what's the point? And this doesn't even count the lack of books, computers (you've got to agree that this is important in this day & age) and other supplies (which many teachers have to supply themselves). And this isn't just CPS. There was a feature in one of the weekend magazines (I think it was Parade) with the Sunday paper that outlined the state of school buildings across the country & how that affects student learning, and how some towns are sacrificing so their kids get a decent education. Areas that are dealing with significant homelessness have even more issues. You read about some other countries, in the "Third World", where they are determined that their children get an education because they have realized that this is one of the only ways that they will have any success at all - the children AND the country. And here we are, trying to figure out how to do this on the cheap, giving mixed messages to everyone (you don't need an education to get rich, just join the NBA) and where is this getting us?

Oh yeah, I've forgotten to mention - I have issued a challenge before, that anyone who doesn't believe that teaching is a hard job & the schools just need better (and of course, cheaper) teachers, take a week & spend it at a school - not just any school, but a CPS school, preferably one with a high rate of poverty & in a violent area. My sister said she'd be delighted to hook someone up with an "adventure", and then maybe you can talk about the schools - who knows, maybe you'll have some practical solutions!

Which of the two related, but still Independent parts of what I said concern you so?

Doesn't the first part answer your concern of educating children of the poor?

I can only conjuncture that you share Wendy's position that the benefit of education is almost 100% a social benefit (not a private benefit to the student and his immediate family). Under that belief, I can see why you would think the government would need to run education (sort of like Defense or the Justice System). But to me that seems like an extreme position that runs in the face of reality: most parents want their children to be educated because they recognize the benefit to their children and indirectly to themselves, not because that brings benefits to the society. If the reality is that education is a service, a service most people can afford buy for their kids, but there is a "public good" in getting to a level of education that would be bought in a free market (primarily having to do with the kids of the poor), why should the government/public funds involvement be anything more than financing that additional increment? That's a very standard, not at all extreme view from the economics of "public goods".

LizH re: "I believe that all students deserve the opportunity of a "free" public education."

I don't think anyone here is talking about kids paying for their own education through high school. Even kids who go to private schools without vouchers are getting it "free": they get most of the benefit, their parents pay. What some of us are saying is that most parents can pay for their children education directly, instead of through taxes and have a choice of where and how their children are educated. While those who can not afford it, would be subsidized. What exactly do you have against that? We all need to eat, but we don't have publicly run supermarkets and food supply chain, we assist people with food stamps when needed. We all need shelter, but we don't publicly run the housing industry, we have public housing assistance when needed. So I am all ears, waiting for a cogent reason why it should be different in education.

Sorry I'm late to respond; a trip to my own dentist is why. How can you not believe education benefits society, or the lack of harms it? Especially now, when jobs for the under-educated no longer exist in great enough numbers?

As for my problem with vouchers, there are two reasons I think they're a bad idea. First, the alternative schools offered through a voucher system do not have to follow state or federal standards public schools must follow. Neither are their staff required to be highly qualified. The above nonsense is another point. Second, what happens when less well off parents are given vouchers? Can they access the same schools as more wealthy parents? Will the screening process by better schools keep their students out?

No, what you'll see is the same thing happening in the suburbs. More wealthy parents will still have exclusive access to the best schools, as they do in wealthier suburbs. Parents of less means and problem students, including special ed students, will be given limited choice to "better" schools, and will probably be better off in the public school system which cannot discriminate against their children.

--Personally, I believe that education is both a private benefit & a social one. I'm not sure you can split the 2 in any way. What benefit to a family is an education if a person can't become a productive member of society (grow up, get a job, move out of parent's home, raise their own family)? And what benefit to society is an uneducated person? People get educated (learn to read, add, reason, etc), then are able to get a job, whatever that might be - doctor, lawyer, cashier, accountant, assembly line worker, engineer, pizza delivery person, etc, and a business can hire them to do needed work, and then that business can grow, and that benefits society. A company that can't hire enough workers capable of being trained to do their work can't get anywhere, nor can someone with no education at all ever invent something, or start their own business, or cure sick people, whatever. So a private and a social benefit. Otherwise everyone would just all study philosophy & sit in a corner & think about things. That wouldn't benefit anyone, really.

"The Pledge is of course only one example of how politics and activism can turn into propaganda in public schools."

You and I part company on this issue. I think it is perfectly proper to teach patriotism in school. I follow the belief of Theodore Roosevelt that, although the US is a country of immigrants, it cannot exist as a polyglot boardinghouse (his words). Every American should pledge allegiance to the United States.

"When appropriate students are matched against each other, public schools always score as well as or better than private schools. The only reason private schools appear to do better is the selection factor."

Do not be shocked but I think you are probably correct about that. I have always believed that the quality of schools is primarily a function of the quality of the students. The quality of the students is a function of genetics plus the quality of parenting. The quality of the teachers and the curriculum is, in my opinion, only a secondary factor.

Educators know this -- that is why they set up magnet schools -- but it is hard to get them to admit it.

CPS are not run "on the cheap." In fact, CPS spends 50% more per student(that's right, 50% more) than my middle class suburban school district. How about if CPS teachers' pay was brought down to true market level, namely that of comparable private school teachers? There would be plenty more money for supplies, books, and computers.

Please carefully re-read what I said. I didn't say education doesn't benefit the society as a whole. What I said is that the bulk of the benefit is private, to the recipient of education (in your example, Wendy, if they get a better job or a job at all). And I find it hard to imagine how one can think otherwise. But let me rephrase: the direct and bigger benefit is to the individual receiving education, the secondary benefit is to the society. Work it out just from the education of one individual and as yourself if that individual is now more productive and can earn $20K more than before, is the society $20K richer for that? No the benefit to the society (on average, across many such people) is some fraction of that $20K. A secondary, smaller benefit. This scenario is a perfect fit for supplementation, not replacement of the private provision of education, just as in the examples of food and shelter I have given.

I am an immigrant who had to pledge allegiance to become a citizen. I can understand how that makes sense, since presumably my allegiances might have been elsewhere before. It also makes sense for public servants. But otherwise I am struggling to come up with a reason for a forcing pledge of allegiance from adults born here, let alone children. Help me here. Do you think repeating words makes someone deeply patriotic? Do you think patriotism can be taught? I think not. I think truth should be taught and I daresay ithe truth about the U.S. achievements, a contrast to other countries would make the majority truly appreciate the luck of their birth, make them patriotic.

Yes, I believe it can be taught to children in school. The reason it is important to teach patriotism is to combat the establishment of ethnic enclaves with their own loyalties -- as the Russian Empire used to have. This is a genuine danger in parts of the United States today. All American children should learn to identify with Patrick Henry and not Benito Juarez or whomever.

I absolutely agree with your goals, social cohesion is important, but am not at all sure you are honing in on the right (effective) ways of achieving them. I don't see direct lecturing of patriotism as being effective. I see teaching comparative history as being more effective (and teaching American history to everyone to begin with). I see teaching political philosophy behind the birth of the U.S. being more effective. I see teaching everyone and everything in English as being more effective. Just not commanding kids to be patriotic and not making chant words.

In my reply to you I neglected to agree with you that according to studies of comparable students, voucher students do about the same as public school students. But you omitted an important detail: the latest analysis of the Milwaukee Voucher program - the first and perhaps the most extensive in the nation - showed that the same result was achieved at a significantly lower cost to taxpayers (in my recollection, as low as half, but don't quote me on that.) If you happen to believe that throwing money at education improves the results, then you might imagine that such public funds savings can be used to purchase more education for these children. Or if it turns out that with the current best educational method that as much as you can hope to achieve with those kids, there might be some other good uses for the money saved.

Wendy,
In my reply to you I neglected to ask why you think it is bad for voucher and charter schools to be less bound by Federal mandates than public schools, rather than for the public schools to be equally free to pursue the quest for ways to achieve better educational results?

Saying that wealthy parents would still likely buy better education for their children is a red herring. Is the fact that someone can afford salmon, someone else can afford cod and a food stamps recipient only canned tuna a reason for the government to run supermarkets and the food industry?

Am I sensing a wholesale dismissal of entire socio-economic stratas as being too ignorant to know what's good for their kids? If so, maybe that's the problem we ought to be dealing with. But if it is true, would their failed [public] education be the first suspect? Unless you think it is genetic.

I'm somewhere in between Boris and Jimmy G on the patriotism issue but, even more importantly, the students need to be grounded in western civilization / culture and its works as opposed to the multicultural nonsense they get now.

@Greg J: "students need to be grounded in western civilization / culture and its works as opposed to the multicultural nonsense they get now."

To be fair, western civilization and multiculturalism aren't mutually exclusive. Consider Jimmy G's admonition that, "All American children should learn to identify with Patrick Henry and not Benito Juarez or whomever." I have no problem with the Patrick Henry part of that equation, but why not include Frederick Douglass as well? (And it wouldn't be so bad to at least learn who Benito Juarez was. I had to look him up on Wikipedia, and I'm part-Mexican!)

@Boris: Regarding whether or not education is a public good, my instinct would be to say that it is, in aggregate. Of course the education of one child benefits that child first and foremost, but doesn't the education of all children benefit society, first and foremost? The same way that the police responding to a break-in at my house would benefit me, but the police being available to respond to a break-in at anybody's house benefits all?

I think your point is that there is some critical mass of educated children that when reached produces some additional benefit over and above the sum of both the private and the public benefit of educating each child. A certain quantity resulting in a new quality (like a nuclear reaction resulting in an explosion). Theoretically possible. But would that benefit would come close, let alone exceed the sum of all the private benefits obtained by those children? That seems an improbable stretch. I think in a free society the burden of proof should be on those who claim some extraordinary "public good" (way in excess of the private good) and use that to justify larger government / larger public expenditure.

Your police analogy is not the greatest, because the very existence of a state presupposes delegation of the use of power to a "public" agency. They wouldn't come to your door unless they were there for everyone to begin with. And their presence - the deterrent - is in fact the main benefit to you, not the fact they responded to your break-in (the chances of your loss being recovered is small, but the real benefit is the value of the break-ins that didn't occur.)

I failed to point out that the way you stated things implies the education of the majority of children will not be achieved without the government financing and running education 100%. My contention is that with their taxes back in the pockets, the majority of parents will buy sufficient (for the social objectives) education for their children. Again because there is a huge private benefit to their children and they can afford it. The gap will be the children of the poor. That's the only place public funds should apply.

@Boris: My point was that any public good (and I may be butchering a very specific term here by thinking more along the lines of city services) can be seen as benefiting an individual, not society, when the benefit is viewed through the lens of a single person. You're right that my analogy was not appropriate, but there are certainly other instances in which police protection benefits an individual (stopping a robbery in progress, for example). Likewise, Streets and Sanitation collects garbage one house at a time, benefiting individual homeowners. One sewer pipe leads to my house. That pipe benefits me personally, but that's far from the whole story. Put all of the pipes together, and they benefit society. (And sure, these individual benefits benefit others as well to the extent that an apprehended robber cannot go on to rob others, or the alley doesn't smell, or the neighbor's sewage doesn't back up, but so does the education of a single student in that he is much more likely to take care of his family, invest, not end up in jail, etc.)

Regarding the issue of critical mass, my thought was not "education is a public good because it produces benefits above and beyond the sum of all private benefits" but rather "education is a public good because it produces (mostly) private benefits that apply, one person at a time, to the entire public."

In terms of whether or not education would be affordable for most people without public schools and their associated taxes, color me skeptical. I don't know of any developed countries that operate under that model. There may be some, but the scenario seems farfetched to me. You mentioned food and shelter as necessities that people pay for themselves (so why not education), but food and shelter satisfy immediate needs. Education does not. My suspicion is that, without public schools, many people would invest in education as anemically as they do health care and retirement, and that the next generation would suffer tremendously.

I didn't say sending kids to school shouldn't be mandatory. That mandate is in itself already a reflection of the public good component of education. So your issue of "many people would invest in education as anemically" doesn't exist. particularly when you combine it with the observation that in my experience most parents do what their kids to get good education. The latter fact almost precedes the existence of any public debate, any angst about the state of education.

(As a minor point, education does satisfy an immediate need also: the need of parents to see their children acquire skills and knowledge as they grow up.)

Ironically, being a "institutional traditionalist" is typically a province of conservatives :-). In another thread I used the example of the switch of the US Armed Forces from Conscription to being volunteer. Today it looks normal and by most accounts I've see, functions beautifully. But back then, as you can imagine, one of the arguments against was "I don't know of any developed countries that operate under that model". Experience of other countries may be relevant (and even then only when put into a proper context), but lack of experience? The same skepticism could have been applied to the U.S. form of government. We should evaluate ideas on its merits to the best of our knowledge, and if it puts us on the new course, why wouldn't we refuse to be the leaders rather than followers? After all, no other developed country created Google or built eBay (a Frenchman had to move to the US to do it.)

--P.S.
I think I still failed to clearly say the core issue: while the public (social) benefit of education is substantial, it is dwarfed by the [sum of] private benefits. Nor is public education like a water plant - a single facility for the whole community that requires one concentrated investment of resources. Nor is access to education the same as to water, where it doesn't make financial sense to lay multiple pipes, but receiving water from multiple sources over the same pipes and different entities trying to sort out who used whose water is impossible.

So in my estimation, unlike some "public good" scenarios, but like many other "public good" scenarios, education is the case, based on economics of "pubic goods", when the optimal model for its provision is private supplemented by public.

There are some fine CPS schools that are far superior to the private schools near them - I was going to name the schools but I don't think I want the lawsuit. 2 of my kids went to both so I have a good comparison. I found that the better teachers go to the money and CPS pays better than private.
On the PGA thing - how about expanding it to include the whistlers at all sporting events. It's not like just whistling at a good play or something, these guys sound like they're right in the booth with the announcers. I can't imagine being at the game next to one of these guys. Sometimes you can't hear the play call.

Given that CPS has difficulty teaching basic reading and arithmetic, I wouldn't be beefing if some vouchered private school in Louisiana was teaching about the 3rd Romulan-Klingon War back during Star Date 2593.31.

Your column of August 19 dismisses a huge body of scientific evidence that makes evolutionists uncomfortable. A substantial group of research organizations who take the teachings of the Bible seriously and realize that the Bible is the true history of the world have preserved the data that others try to ignore or discredit. There are cave drawings all around the world, including southwest U.S. that depict animals readily recognizable as dinosaurs. If these drawing were not made by humans, who made them? Some writers dismiss these as fanciful imaginings, but they are side by side with more readily accepted images of modern animals. A web site with extensive information from one of these research organizations is www.creation.com.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.